If you liked 'shoot-em-ups', well, you loved 'The Untouchables'.

While it was not exactly a history lesson about the facts of 1930's gangland Chicago and it didn't precisely follow the true career and life of Prohibition Agent Eliot Ness, it was entertaining...and noisy.

'The Untouchables' began a 4 year run on ABC in 1959 and in fact won a Best Actor Emmy for star Robert Stack in 1960.  But it almost didn't happen at all.

Censor's were, shall we say, concerned about the level of violence in the series and Italian-Americans were not happy about the 'light' that was cast upon them.  Most of the hoodlums were of Italian descent.

The show was produced by Desilu, a company headed up by Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball.  However, this was not 'I Love Lucy'.  The series was 'loosely' (very loosely) based on the memoir written by Eliot Ness.  Veteran character actor Neville Brand portrayed gangster Al Capone.

The series was made into a major motion picture starring Kevin Costner as Ness and was well received and successful.

But those of us of a, well, certain age, will always remember the original.  118 episodes in total, the series can still be seen on cable channel's in re-runs.

The star of 'The Untouchables' Robert Stack passed away in 2003 at the age of 84. And while younger adults will remember him best from his comedic role in 1984's 'Airplane!', you set them straight: That's Eliot Ness!


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